The Tour De France

The Tour De France

There was something relaxing about sitting down to watch approximately two hundred men compete day for day in probably the most gruelling sporting event in the world involving tactics, drama, excitement and the beauty of the French countryside all thrown together.

Despite the fact that you can go cycling with others, there is something solitary about it. Admittedly you can have conversation with your companions when you're pedalling gently along on a flat road, providing the traffic doesn't force you to cycle single file. The increased energy you need to put into climbing hills, along with the increased demand your body has for oxygen, tends to concentrate your attention on yourself, your effort, your breathing, your goal of reaching the summit. The desire for conversation fades into the background. And the pleasure of racing downhill, combined with the concentration you need to keep on the road and the fact that the wind will whip your words away anyhow, is also a fundamentally solitary one.

The solitary nature of cycling is also one of the factors which characterise such major professional events such as the Tour de France: one man, taking part in a competition with all others, testing his body and character to their limits and beyond with a goal which only one can achieve, wearing the yellow jersey. Of course, in the course of the years the Tour has become so complex that it contains many other goals worth reaching: winning a stage, being the overall leader etc. but significantly, all of these goals are individual ones.

At the same time, no-one can win the Tour de France on their own; you need a whole team behind you and a good one too. The complexity of the three-week event, cycling around 3,500 km with all sorts of different stages which include travelling through major mountain ranges, climbing elevations which have been estimated to total three times the height of Everest, necessitates all kinds of tactical and strategic thinking, co-operations, temporary alliances and, above all, team work. This is the other aspect of the Tour which I have found so fascinating. It's not enough to get up every day and ride your hardest to get to the finish as fast as you can. It's not even enough to get up every day, analyse your weaknesses and strengths and plan your stage accordingly. Because, depending on all sorts of factors, what you achieve is dependent on what the others let you achieve and what kind of dedicated support and help you get from others.

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